Study Finds Small but Rising Share of Research Papers Contain Fabricated Citations

A new study on fabricated citations was published in the Lancet on May 7, 2026. The study, led by Maxim Topaz, a nurse and health AI researcher at Columbia University, identified around 4,000 fabricated citations among 2,800 papers after sifting through over 2 million papers and 97 million citations. In 2023, 1 in 2,828 papers contained one or more fabricated references.

By 2025 that rate had climbed to 1 in 458 papers, a sixfold increase in frequency. During the first seven weeks of 2026, the rate of papers with fabricated references reached 1 in 277. More than a third of fabricated citations come from two publishers.

The analysis itself was prompted by an experience involving generative AI. Maxim Topaz used an AI chatbot to help edit an editorial and an erroneous citation was flagged by a journal editor despite his checks.

"I was deeply embarrassed: I checked for that, and it still almost happened to me. This is how I ended up thinking about other people," Topaz said. The Columbia University researchers who authored the paper concluded that tools using generative AI are likely to blame for the spread of fabricated citations that do not reference real academic papers.

These citations are polluting the public record of science. Misha Teplitskiy, a sociologist of science at the University of Michigan who has studied citation practices and AI use among academics, reviewed the findings. " Mohammad Hosseini, a professor at Northwestern University who studies research integrity and the ethics of AI use, offered a separate assessment.

The proliferation of fabricated citations could affect systematic reviews or clinical guidelines that build on existing studies. It also points to broader changes in citation practices, shifting from reflective engagement with literature to a more superficial process aided by AI prompting.

The Science family of journals uses an automated tool to check references and has not had a published paper with a fabricated citation.

@statnews reported that spokespeople for other prominent biomedical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA, said their outlets employ citation validation tools and hold authors responsible for accuracy. The study authors are Columbia University researchers.

Fabricated citations are not distributed evenly across journals, according to a dashboard published alongside the paper.